Gill picked up his mobile phone and keyed in the letters V I N. The phone at the other end rang and was answered.
‘It’s David.’
There was no response.
‘Vince, it’s David,’ Gill whispered desperately. ‘I’ve done it, done what you asked-’
‘You should not call me,’ Vince Bellamy said. He had picked up the inflection in Gill’s voice. He had heard it before and knew what it meant.
‘I need help.’
‘Not here, not now — it’s too dangerous for us all,’ Bellamy said worriedly. ‘I can’t see you this week for both our sakes.’
‘You must. I’ve done what you asked, extra. Now I need to see you.’
‘No.’ It was short, sharp. Bellamy hung up.
Gill closed his eyes. He began to rock back and forth, trying to catch his breath. Then his eyes clicked open. He knew what he had to do.
He changed quickly into his bicycle leathers, revelling in the sensation of the animal skin against his own. One day, he thought, I’ll kill and skin a cow and wrap myself up in its hide. One day. Promise. He pulled the full-face helmet on and clamped down the black visor, ensuring no one could see his face.
Outside the flat, the walkway was deserted, as was the narrow stairwell leading down to the lock-up garages at the back. He saw no one, no one saw him.
His motorbike was inside the garage, just as he had left it: fuelled up, ready to go. He pushed the bike out of the garage and stood it on its stand while he went back inside where, despite himself, he unlocked the big chest freezer which was pushed along the back wall. The cold, escaping air misted his visor for a few moments, then it cleared.
Gill smiled grimly at the contents of the freezer, then slammed the lid shut and re-locked it. He secured the garage door and mounted his bike which fired up first time. He throttled back gently.
Time to get some counselling, he thought.
The Berlin Hotel was on Bairstow Street, running at right angles off the promenade, south of Central Pier. As had many establishments in the town, the Berlin had been through many incarnations, name changes and hands, finally being bought for a knock-down price five years earlier by its present owners after eighteen months on the market.
They were a man and wife with extreme right-wing leanings. Both had been minor political activists in their younger days, and also Hell’s Angels. They had bought the Berlin (as they named it) intending to make a living by providing an environment which pandered to that particular right-wing niche in the market. Being fanatical Nazis, they had spent money decorating the hotel accordingly, even down to the carpet which had been specially made, with a swastika pattern repeated throughout. They also opened a sleazy beer cellar, claiming that it was authentic German — and it did sell real German lagers. The boisterous evenings attracted the leather-clad biking fraternity as well as right-wing activists; closed political meetings became common and an affiliation to the ‘Right Wingers’ grew up and, through Vince Bellamy, the splinter group Hellfire Dawn. During this particular week of the conference, Hellfire Dawn used the Berlin as their own conference headquarters.
Extra decorations had been put up. Banners displaying huge swastikas and various provocative slogans were draped along the facade of the hotel. Immense photographs of the glorious leader, Adolf Hitler, accompanied these, his steely, slightly mad gaze watching passers-by.
David Gill knew it was a risk, but one he had to take. He had to see Vince. There was every chance the Berlin was under some sort of police surveillance, particularly this week, and there was the possibility he might be recognised. He found a parking spot for his bike on Caroline Street and walked the hundred or so metres down to the Berlin Hotel, wearing his helmet all the way.
At the foot of the steps leading up to the front door of the Berlin Hotel, Gill stopped and gazed upwards. Inside the all-glass front doors, two tough-looking men lounged indolently. They glowered down at him. He nodded imperceptibly at the most prominent photograph of Hitler and trotted up the steps.
The two bouncers opened the door for him, but would not let him go through the next set of doors.
‘Who are you?’ one of the bouncers asked, stopping him from entering the hotel by putting a hand on his chest.
‘I’ve come to see Bellamy.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes,’ said Gill. ‘Let me through.’
‘I think not.’ The other bouncer moved towards him with menace.
Gill reacted swiftly, catching them unawares. He kicked the one in front of him swiftly in the testicles, hard and accurately. He went down like a lead balloon. Gill turned to the second one who, before he could punch Gill in the guts, received the full weight of the crash helmet on his nose which splashed open instantly. He staggered back holding it, unable to stem the gush of blood.
‘Jesus Christ, David, you didn’t have to do that.’
Gill turned quickly to the voice. It was Vince Bellamy. ‘I needed to see you, Vince. No one should try to stop me.’
‘And why the fuck do I employ you idiots?’ Bellamy said to the groaning bouncers. ‘Go and get yourself cleaned up f’Christ’s sake. You couldn’t protect a damn thing.’ To Gill he said, ‘Come on.’
He led him through the hotel. They went past the reception desk and down a short corridor. On the right was a large bar area with a fair-sized dance floor and stage. Dozens of rows of chairs had been arranged to face the stage and the walls had been festooned with Nazi-related literature and photographs of the German ‘top team’, circa 1939-45. They passed a large dining room to the left and went through a door at the end of the corridor marked ‘Private — staff only’. This opened out into a further, shorter corridor with three doors off it.
The first door was open. Two men sat at a table with a Citizens’ Band radio console on it and a transmission microphone. This was the radio room: Hellfire Dawn operatives were positioned at strategic points throughout Blackpool, equipped with radios, relaying information back to the Berlin Hotel about the movement of police and politicians. They were well organised. Last night the co-ordination of the rioting in Shoreside had been done from the Berlin.
Bellamy led Gill to the third door along and ushered him in ahead of him. He closed the door and locked it.
Vince Bellamy regarded Gill with a fatherly smile.
The two men had first encountered each other while students at university. Bellamy, the older of the two, had been a post-graduate and very politically active in a brand of extreme politics which had appealed to, and sucked in, the younger man. Bellamy, even at that age, his early twenties, had been able to exert great influence over others, particularly the weak. He and Gill had spent many hours together discussing the right-wing movement into the early mornings; Gill, who went by his real name then, listened attentively, rather than spoke, nodding in firm agreement about the way things should be, how Britain even then was losing its way, and how action had to be taken to make changes.
It had been during the course of these conversations that Bellamy had fuelled Gill’s hatred of minorities, feeding his mind with twisted logic and suspect political argument. One night, after a long session, Gill had expressed his loathing of an Asian girl student in his year. She seemed to be given opportunities denied to white students, seemed to be getting favouritism, despite the fact she was coloured.
Under the influence of alcohol, Gill had revealed he would like to kill her.
In response Bellamy had said simply, ‘Why not?’
At first Gill had hesitated. However, over a period of weeks the idea grew in his mind. It became an obsession which Bellamy nurtured until one night Gill said he was ready to do it.
Undetected, both young men entered the student accommodation in which the girl lived. They found her in her tiny bedsit, sleeping. Bellamy watched with excitement as Gill strangled her with her pyjama cord. Gill himself got a brutal pleasure from the taking of life and Bellamy got another idea for his political strategy: pick off individuals who somehow played a part in the decline of the country either by their presence or their actions. Like a sniper.